"I've Got Some Bad News and Some Worse News!" 11/14 Last chap!

[SoccerDogWithEars]

The mental image of you tossing all the food into the trash at a gas station made my morning. And that's also because you know that somewhere, some hillbilly was watching you do this and as soon as you left, went to reclaim the perfectly good albeit melted food. It happened to my Mom in Boston. She threw away her cannoli that she never wanted in the first place, and I kid you not, as we walked away a homeless guy reached into the trash and pulled it back out. A slightly traumatizing sight when you're 12.

You know what other drive is boring? NC through Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. By the time we reached our hotel that night, I swore that if I ever saw the color green again, I was going to scream. The road just cut through green trees, and green hills. Nothing else to look at. Actually, in all honesty, driving through NC to get ANYWHERE is boring. Unless you're on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

[DisneyJo]

I'm finally here

 

[PixiePlanner]

Day 2:

We all ate the breakfast buffet in the lobby and the fresh fruit was amazing! We grabbed an apple and a yogurt each for later in the morning and put them in the cooler so they would be nice and cold!

Is this foreshadowing???

Then we were Illinois and Indiana bound!

As my family lives in Michigan and I in Lincoln's land, I have seen more grass/corn/soy than I care to on my trips. I feel your pain."

"The food is all hot."

"Is it not working? What do you mean it is hot?"

"I mean like the food is hot to the touch."

"Well how hot can it be if it is not working? Didn't you check it before we left?"

"I mean it is friggin hot like boiling."

The whole cooler thing made me LOL. I literally had soda in my mouth that I almost choked on.

 

[teedee]

Originally Posted by Mndisneygirl
I like the growing into the dress idea. Wish I'd heard it sooner. Although it's never too late to start.

I also love this idea! I'm going to start Carter doing it.

I would have been so mad about the cooler, although the humor of it would have hit later. That's sooo something that would happen to me.

Terri

 

[Disney Geek]

Ok, first the cooler story had me spitting out the water I was drinking as I was reading it but then later I went on an old PTR of yours and read the story about Crush 'n' Gusher at TL! Can I admit that I nearly wet myself I rode all of them and let me tell you, I am not a small person but thankfully, my DD is all of 80lbs soaking wet so between the 2 of us we ended up being the weight of 2 average people... Well, those things were soooo fast, I thought I was going to die every time! But was stupid enough to keep going back and try all of them! Let me tell you, the last one we rode was the Banana Blaster... wholly cow! We were going so fast and were airborne many times and when we would land I would hit my backside really hard... DD was falling more and more in the hole of the tube thing (I don't have that problem as I barely fit ) so was hitting her backside as well! DD ended up being catapulted out of the waterslide by herself, we think she fell through the hole as we flew out of the demon slide but we're not sure!... I was still in the tube and landed in the water on top of her and started panicking because I could not find her ! The photopass photographer's face looking at us was priceless! Oh, I can laugh now but I swore I would never ride those things again!

 

[SoccerDogWithEars]

Ok, so I know this is a little delayed, but I meant to add it earlier. My car, too, decided that it no longer needed to blow cold air about a month ago. However, my windows don't roll down either, so for about a week I drove around in a small oven. And because my car is 18 years old, the refrigerant it needs is not exactly....well, it's legal, but you have to pay about 60 dollars per can. Luckily, my dad is a borderline hoarder, and had a couple of cans in the carport. Our friend had the hose we needed, so just a quick trip across town and ten minutes of keeping the engine revved, I have A/C again! Which made the trip back to college a LOT more enjoyable.

 

[Dizneydawn]

Hi guys! Was gone for a birthday weekend and am just back today and will get a chance to post tom!

Hope you all are well and can't wait to get the new update posted!!

 

[Dugette]

Hi, Dawn. You had asked to see a pic of my ring, so I found one for you:

It was supposed to be all diamonds on the sides, but I had it customized to alternate the diamonds with sapphires.

 

[Dizneydawn]

The mental image of you tossing all the food into the trash at a gas station made my morning. I am glad my personal foibles give you entertainment!!!
You know what other drive is boring? NC through Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. By the time we reached our hotel that night, I swore that if I ever saw the color green again, I was going to scream. The road just cut through green trees, and green hills. Nothing else to look at. Actually, in all honesty, driving through NC to get ANYWHERE is boring. Unless you're on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I promise if you drove through Nebraska, you would give your right pidipple to see anything green!

I'm finally here

Well Ia m glad and I have to tell you I bought crumpets here the other day at the grocery store and I am thrilled to find a new, low calorie choice for personal pizza's, breakfast delicacies and the like!!!

The whole cooler thing made me LOL. I literally had soda in my mouth that I almost choked on.

Again, so glad you evil holligans of doom find my pain so amusing!!!

I would have been so mad about the cooler, although the humor of it would have hit later. That's sooo something that would happen to me.

Terri

Thank you Terri for saying that because sometimes I feel all alone in this muck of bad luck!

Ok, first the cooler story had me spitting out the water I was drinking as I was reading it but then later I went on an old PTR of yours and read the story about Crush 'n' Gusher at TL! Can I admit that I nearly wet myself The first step is in admitting you have a problem so who am I to stop your personal progress? I rode all of them and let me tell you, I am not a small person but thankfully, my DD is all of 80lbs soaking wet so between the 2 of us we ended up being the weight of 2 average people... Well, those things were soooo fast, I thought I was going to die every time! But was stupid enough to keep going back and try all of them! Let me tell you, the last one we rode was the Banana Blaster... wholly cow! We were going so fast and were airborne many times and when we would land I would hit my backside really hard... DD was falling more and more in the hole of the tube thing (I don't have that problem as I barely fit ) so was hitting her backside as well! DD ended up being catapulted out of the waterslide by herself, we think she fell through the hole as we flew out of the demon slide but we're not sure!... I was still in the tube and landed in the water on top of her and started panicking because I could not find her ! The photopass photographer's face looking at us was priceless! Oh, I can laugh now but I swore I would never ride those things again!

See, that makes me feel better. Knowing it is just not attributed to our large mass, er I mean @ss!

Hi, Dawn. You had asked to see a pic of my ring, so I found one for you:

That is absolutely fit for a princess!!! Stunning all the way!!!
It was supposed to be all diamonds on the sides, but I had it customized to alternate the diamonds with sapphires.

Ok guys...off to put my next installment up!!

 

[Dizneydawn]

Day 3

Dan and I awoke after just a few hours of sleep and decided I could drive to Anderson. It was about 5:30 a.m. so we would get to Anderson in great time and hope to be on the road by noon! I knew we would have to get Treyner's stuff unloaded, get him to wi-fi access so he could finish his leftover test and then, we had to meet up with part of the posse that would be going with us for a part of this journey!

We were mean and woke the girls and asked them to go to the bathroom since it was right there and that meant not having to stop before we hit Anderson. We had parked in a rest stop that was at the base of some mountains and you could just make out the silhouettes of them in the fog.

Can I say I love the smell of the Carolina's mountains in the morning? The air is crisp and like breathing in a piece of heaven. It was too early to be humid and listening closely I swear you could hear God waking up the birds. There is a mystique to those mountains. They may not be as majestic as the Rockies but they are welcoming. Colorado is an awesome beauty to behold but it is like the Smokey Mountains just want to wrap you in their grasses and make you know that this is the place you can always count on.

I am not a big rugged terrain type of girl. I have skied a lot and I do not mind climbing up rocks but I know myself to know that if I am going to live somewhere that has Mountains, than it is going to be somewhere that I can enjoy them. The Rockies just want to kick your @ss. They are something that you can look at but not touch unless you want to run the risk of injury. You need to prepare yourself to climb them, ski them, etc. They are not something to mess with or take lightly.

The Smokies just seem to give the feel that they want to grow with you. Explore with you. Let you enjoy them without worrying about oxygen depravation, or headaches that will crumble you to your knees.

Maybe the best way to explain how I feel is that there are the homes that you can admire but you know you would never feel comfortable in or just curling up and watching a tv show on a couch within. They are beautiful but not gracious. Refined but not homey.

Then you have a house that is like a warm blanket when you enter the doors. Full of laughter and the smell of great food. One you know that you are welcome in, any time of the day or night and you do not need to make a phone call ahead of time to announce your arrival.

The Smokies are like my Grandparents house to me and I never thought I could ever find a place again that I felt that much at ease in.

So we used the facilities, Kizzy went to her grass biffy and then, with Dan as my sleeping co-pilot, we headed down the road.

We got to Ashville, NC within an hour and I tried to call Treyner. I had no idea where we were going once we got to Anderson and there is a bazillion different ways to get into Anderson from the freeway.

There was no answer. I had a slight panic that he was so exhausted that he would simply sleep through my calls until he woke up on his own and we would be driving through the hood in Anderson, yelling out the window for him!

It did not even take 2 hours to get to one of the Anderson exits and we went in yet again, through a different route than the 3 previous attempts! This time we still ended up by the college and it was just then, that Treyner finally called. He gave us directions and the distance from the college to his apartment was less than 5 miles. I was glad he had a motor scooter to help shave some of the cost of driving back and forth off!

His apartments were very nice and they shared a common, outdoor stairwell in each building and was 3 floors high. Treyner was on the second floor right off the landing and so it made moving his stuff a ton easier.

It also made it easier because the guys did the heavy lifting!

The place was pretty big actually. You walk into the living room and straight ahead is the master bedroom and bath. To the left is a sun room which as typical college kids, they had filled with games and the hopes of a ping pong table.

To the right was a dining room and then the galley kitchen. Past that was a second bedroom and if you took a left you had at the end of the hall, Treyner's room on the right and a second bathroom on the left. There was also a closet for a stackable washer and dryer.

Treyner had the smallest of the rooms but it had a huge walk in closet and it was not tiny. His queen bed, dresser, big TV and all his clothes were fine in it. The 4 roommates were planning on splitting the cost so Treyner's share was about $200 a month plus utilities. Cheap but he has now after a month, realized the fun of having people with different cleaning habits share your space.

He shares the second bathroom with his friend Lauren who has the second bedroom. Sharing a bathroom with a girl who is not your girlfriend is also quite interesting! This is one of those times that he needed to experience to learn on his own and I think he is hoping to change his living arrangements for next year a bit!

There is also the fact that Lauren had gotten a puppy named Charlie.

Charlie is part Rotweiller and part German Sheppard. Charlie is going to be a big dog. Lauren is gone a lot and Treyner has found out that he is doing more training of Charlie than Lauren.

Charlie was very curious of Kizzy. They were about the same height but Kizzy is obviously much smaller in build and also spry. She would chase him and then run under a chair and Charlie would bolt head on into the same chair. He did not have the coordination down yet to be light on his feet.

Once everything was at least brought into Treyner's room, we commenced showering! Leah went first and then Carsyn. Leah had a towel of hers in her bag and Carsyn asked Treyner if he knew where his towels were.

He threw her a towel and she showered, then did not come out of the bathroom forever.

Finally, we heard a question from the bathroom...

"Treyner? Did you ever wash these towels before?"

Leah and I went traipsing over to see what the issue was. Then we laughed so hard I thought I would leave a puddle.

Seems that Treyner, in order to be frugal with his towels he had got for college last year, never used a few of them. They were his nice towels and he wanted to keep them nice. They had indeed never been washed and after sitting for a year, were long overdue to loose their first coat of fluff. They were like a duck and were molting! All over Carsyn!

They also were blue.

So Carsyn looked like a smurf had cr@pped all over her!!!

Literally there was not one crack or crevice that was not covered in blue lint.

So Treyner, laughing at the perfect victim for this unintentional faux paux, found her a new towel and she scrubbed and re-showered. That night she was still picking blue lint from her navel.

I got in next and the remnants of the blue stew was all over the tub. I washed it as I showered and just could not believe that I was showering in my son's bathroom. It was a strange thing to be in your son's bathroom vs. your bathroom that your son uses. It is his home and his things and he really is grown up. No hiding from it when the reality hits you smack in the face. He may come home again but he has had his own home now and nothing will ever be like it was before that moment.

That summer he had no curfew. Not that he had time to do anything with all his schoolwork but I knew he had been on his own for a year and if I can trust him to make good choices when I am gone, then I thought it was stupid to instill high school rules on him at home. He doesn't always makes good choices mind you but he is a man now and if I expect him to be responsible like a man, even for his mistakes, I think it is hypocritical to then treat him like a child just because he is back home.

So although our relationship had evolved since he left for college, this was a new milestone and actually one I think that has helped him appreciate what it takes to run a house and how frustrating it is when that does not go smoothly.

We met Lauren and his roommate Jensen. (She is the other half of his BF Adi who was in England visiting his family for the summer. Adi is also a goalkeeper.) They were both nice girls and I felt good about the safety of his apartment and his choice for roommates. Their building was just feet from the pool and I knew he would be happy there even if everything was not perfect.

 

[MEK]

I love your description of the smokey mountains. Unfortunately for me I only spent a brief period of time there in July. I would love to go back.

So glad you ended with an uneventful trip to Anderson and that you were able to shower at Treyner's new apartment. I am sure that's a bit of an adjustment for him, but it is a great learning experience.

The dogs are so cute together.

And that blue towel - Oh My!

Great update, as usual!

 

[Dizneydawn]

The dogs are so cute together.

They were but I think now, Charlie would kill Kizzy!
And that blue towel - Oh My!
Leah put it up on FB while Carsyn has been gone to camp and I cannot wait till she finds out that it is up there!!

I get to pick up Carsyn's senior photo proofs today at 3 p.m.!!! Will post some here when I can!!

 

[mousetravel]

Day 3

Is that Treyner in the background, and where did he swipe that road sign from?!

 

[Dizneydawn]

Is that Treyner in the background, and where did he swipe that road sign from?!

I saw that after I posted it too!!!

Yup - that is him in front of Lauren's room heading down to his...as far as the sign goes - I have no idea where it came from and it is probably better that it stays that way although it could be from one of those sign places you can invent your own.

I just shook my head when I read what it says...typical guy with adult humor which I would find funny if it was not my son!!

 

[Pollito916]

You can sometimes buy road signs like that at flea markets or swap meets - let's pretend that's where he got it.

 

[SoccerDogWithEars]

What does the road sign say? I've tilted my laptop at every angle I can and still cannot make out the words. And now it's just going to bug me until I know.

Charlie is just the cutest thing ever. No offense to Kizzy, but I am much more of a big dog person. Which is why I love our boxer/pit mix so much. Though I had to drag out his old harness the other day, because Gramma needed it for her recently acquired chihuahua/beagle mix. I did a double take when I pulled it out, because I could hardly believe Apawlo had ever been that small.

 

[eeyoresnr]

What does the road sign say? I've tilted my laptop at every angle I can and still cannot make out the words. And now it's just going to bug me until I know.
l.

I even tried the magnifying glass...I can't figure it out either

 

[jane2073]

Roughrider Road

At least that is what it looks like to me.

Loving the report (as always)!!

 

[Dizneydawn]

What does the road sign say? I've tilted my laptop at every angle I can and still cannot make out the words. And now it's just going to bug me until I know.

It says.....

Roughrider Rd N


and I did ask now that the sign was not associated with me and he is an adult in his own apartment , how he came to have such a sign...

The story is:

The sign was from a nearby city and that street was in the middle of nowhere. (How the idiot who named the street did not know they were glutton for punishment I will never know.) He possibly came upon possession of said sign due to the help of at least one other person who will remain nameless.

Treyner's biggest concern was that you all knew that there were others with the same name but he made sure they were left alone so people would not get lost. He says he would never want anyone getting stranded and it be his fault. He does have a concious!

He is not confirming or denying he may have been party for the original take down but he does know that possession is 9/10 of the law and says that he can now live in fear of the Space Mountain po po's and any Disboard internet surfing ones with jurisdiction in multiple states.

I said I would let him know if a warrant came here for him!

He was giggling like a school girl when I told him the hullabaloo he had created on here all due to an innocent self-portrait Leah took! If I could tape his giggle, you all would giggle because he sounds more girly than Carsyn! Like a Tollhouse Keebler Elf! Maybe the Snuggle Fabric Softner bear is better. Pillsbury dough boy? You get the idea!

 

[Dizneydawn]

Roughrider Road

At least that is what it looks like to me.

Loving the report (as always)!!

Ahhh!!!!! I was too long winded and you posted before me!!!! Here I went to all the work of making him confess his sins and everything!!